The Walt Longmire Mystery Series Boxed Set Volumes 1-4 (36 page)

I turned the switch, and the engine roared to life along with some indiscernible heavy metal band that had been lurking in the CD player at full volume. I slammed my hand against the dash, splitting all the knobs from the deck, and they fell to the floorboards. I sat there for a moment in the relative quiet, then reached down and turned the heat on full, adjusting all of the louvers toward the back.

His gas gauge was at three-quarters; I figured I could leave the truck running, get back with Henry, and still have plenty of gas to get us all out of here. Where was my backup is what I wanted to know. I would have thought that once everybody had gotten the details of the plan somebody would have been here. I rolled down both front windows about an inch just in case George’s luck stretched to carbon monoxide poisoning. I heard a low moan come from the back. I threw my arm over the passenger seat and stared at the lump under the blanket.

He began rubbing a hand over his jaw while simultaneously holding his leg with his other hand. “Ohl, gawhd . . .” It was garbled, but you could still make it out.

“George?”

One of the eyes opened a little, then rapidly closed. “Pwhlat?”

“Do you know who I am?” The eye partially opened again, and he strained to remember my face. “I’m Sheriff Longmire, remember me?” He nodded, slightly. “George, we’re in a really bad situation here, so I need you to understand what I’m saying.”

He grimaced and raised his head a little. “Whmy laghwurts . . .”

“Yep, I know your leg hurts, and I’d imagine your jaw doesn’t feel too good right now, either. But I need you to listen to me. You’re hurt, but I’ve got you stabilized. There’s not a lot more I can do until we get you out of here. The problem is, I’ve got another man injured, back on the trail, and I need to go get him.”

“Thehindiyan?”

“You remember him, huh? Do you remember shooting him?” He remained silent and didn’t move. “Well, you did, and now I’ve got to go back and get him.”

His eyes widened a little, and he blinked. “Whtryed tookill me . . .”

“No, he didn’t. It’s Henry Standing Bear, and he came up here with me to try and get you out safely.” I sighed and tried to wrap it up. “George, we’re stuck in a snowstorm, and I’ve got to go back and get Henry before it gets so I can’t find him . . .”

“Whtryed tookill me . . .”

“No, George, he didn’t try and kill you because, if he had tried, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Swhotme?”

“No, you shot yourself while you were trying to shoot me.”

“Whtryed to . . .”

I leaned forward and glared at him for emphasis. “George? I need you to shut up.” It must have worked because his eyes widened, but that was the only part of him that moved. “Here’s what I need you to do; I need you to stay here and try and stay awake. Do you understand?”

He nodded his head.

“Good. I’ve got your truck going and the heater is on so it’s going to warm up in here pretty quick. Now, here’s the important part.” I leaned in even farther. “No matter how long it takes me, you wait here. Got it?” I kept my eyes steady on him for a moment. “Good. Now just stay here and get warm. I’ll be back, okay?”

I pulled the seat cover off from the passenger side and dragged it after me as I slid out into the snow and wind. I shut the door and wrapped myself up in the cover, pulling it high and making a hood. I pulled the radio from the small of my back and shook the condensation from it before it could freeze. “This is Walt Longmire, sheriff of Absaroka County, I’ve got an emergency with men down. Is there anybody out there? Over.” I waited, but the static seemed fainter than it had before.

I looked back across the lot in the general direction of the trailhead, but the only thing visible over the top of the truck was my rapidly filling footprints that led into oblivion. I drove the radio back in the clip at the small of my back and started off. I clutched the seat cover tighter around me and discovered a series of vinyl pockets that ran along the front. I tucked my stiffening hands into two of the pockets and silently thanked George for spending the extra twenty on the luxury model. I felt around and found what felt like a church key and a large shop rag, which I pulled out and wrapped around my face. I’m sure I looked like a Bedouin: Ben el Napa. I chuckled to myself at the thought of Henry seeing me like this; he could just laugh himself to death.

There was a sudden grade as the parking lot ended and I thought the trailhead began. I peered through the snow as it dove around my makeshift hood, but I couldn’t see the sign. The fact that it was eight feet high and at least six feet wide was less than encouraging. I tucked my head back into the nylon tweed cover and continued to trudge ahead. I was thinking that this was a poor excuse for a search if I couldn’t even find the sign, when I ran my head into one of the telephone poles that supported the damn thing. My head really hurt, but at least I’d found the first indication that I was going in the right direction. The gusts pressed against my back and slapped the ends of my autoponcho around me.

What was I doing, what had I done? It was hard to think. It was darker now, and the snow had gotten worse. The flakes were smaller than the silver dollar ones of before, and they became tiny flat discs that hovered in the air, moving with its currents. They swirled, paused, and then dove into the distance, making me feel that I was falling backward no matter how hard I lumbered forward. I closed my eyes to clear my head, but the disorientation continued. It was definitely darker now; the depression of the path continued up the hill, and the shadows of the trees remained consistent on both sides. As long as I stayed between them and continued uphill, I would eventually get to him.

* * *

Henry hadn’t been at the sentencing, but this hadn’t been a surprise since he hadn’t been at the trial at all. We hadn’t been in touch during the case and, even though I was continually busy, I had gotten the distinct feeling that he was distancing himself from me. I don’t know if I would have done anything different if I had spoken with Henry, and it was like he had said on the trail, in what seemed like another epoch, ignoring them was the best he could do. I wasn’t sure if I could have shown that much restraint, given the circumstances.

Vern said that he had received about seventy-five letters about the sentencing, that they were split fifty-fifty on whether the boys should be granted some semblance of leniency or whether they should be horsewhipped all the way to Kemmerer. After he had taken his place on the bench, the defense pled for a sentence that would “reflect the homegrown values and sense of forgiveness that were a hallmark of frontier civilization.” Even Ferg had to glance up at Steve Miller as he delivered that one, but his righteous tone and openly displayed conviction kept anyone from laughing out loud.

Each of the boys was allowed to stand and make a statement; it was the first time Bryan Keller had spoken in public about the rape. He stood and fanned his fingertips across the table before him. The whitening at his knuckles betrayed the fact that he needed assistance to stand, and we all waited. After a few moments, Vern spoke to him. “You wish to make a statement, Mr. Keller?”

“Yes . . .”—he cleared his throat—“I do, your honor.” His head dropped as he studied the dull oak finish of the table. He took a deep breath and raised his head. “Your honor, my lawyer has advised me to remain silent, but to be honest with you I feel that I may have said nothing for too long.” It had taken all the air out of him to get that far, and I wondered how much more he could get out before he hyper-ventilated. “I’ve thought a lot about all the things I’ve wanted to say, and I’ve had a long time to think about all of them. I’ve thought about the poor judgment I used that day, and how I’m older and that I hope you’ll let me learn from this horrible mistake that I’ve made . . . But none of that seems important now. There’s only one thing that’s important for me to say now, and that is that I am sorry.” He tilted his head back, and you could just see the beginnings of a shine to his eyes. “I want to tell Melissa that I am sorry; I want to tell her family that I am sorry for what I’ve put them through, to the people on the reservation for the things that have been said, to my family . . .” He stopped for a moment, then stood up straighter and allowed his hands to fall to his sides. “But the most important one is Melissa. I just want to tell her how sorry I am for what I’ve done to her and her life.” He stood for a moment longer, then sat, with a hand shielding his eyes.

“George Esper?”

George stood and placed his hands in his pockets but quickly extracted them and allowed them to drop. His voice was soft and faded out at the ends of his sentences like someone unaccustomed to public speaking. “Your honor, you can’t go back and change things that happened . . .” The majority of his apology was to the parents that sat behind him and tapered off from there.

“Jacob Esper?”

Jacob stood with fists at his sides. “Your honor, I’d like to say that I can’t express the sorrow I feel.” So he didn’t. Instead, he made a general appeal at how sorry he was for everything and left it at that. I wondered mildly what everything entailed.

“Cody Pritchard, do you have anything you would like to say?”

He didn’t move and remained seated with his hands in his pockets. After a moment, he smirked and said, “No.” And I thought about how far I could get him through one of the second-story windows on one try.

Then Kyle Straub, the prosecuting attorney, stood and began the statement he hoped would assure that the defendants would serve significant jail time. He argued like a man on fire that these young men must not go free and that anything less than strong sentencing for all four would be the final punch line in the unending joke that this trial had become. Vern looked up at that one, too.

Because of their ages when they had raped Melissa Little Bird, Kyle anticipated that Vern might sentence the three young men convicted of rape to a youth facility rather than to a prison. Offenders sent to youth facilities were usually not given a minimum sentence, which placed the duration of imprisonment squarely on the shoulders of prison officials. All of which meant that the prosecution needed a five-year minimum sentence or the convicted would be available for parole in a much shorter period of time. The judge must set a minimum; even I got that.

* * *

I tripped but caught my balance before I buried myself in the snow. It was getting deeper, about at midcalf, and my plodding was becoming more forced. Other than my feet, the only part of me that consistently felt warm was my chin and nose. The smell of gasoline and used motor oil from the shop rag was beginning to get to me. My legs were tired, my back ached, and the seat cover was doing little as protection. With my hands embedded into the nylon pockets, I had been unable to keep the wind from periodically lifting up the rear of the poncho and sending a brisk nor’wester up my back, so my fingers became victims to my attempts at keeping the seat cover wrapped around me. They caused me the most pain, until they lost all feeling. The problem with stepping in the rut of the path was that my boots kept slipping on the angle, sometimes causing me to slide on the frozen, uneven ground. When this happened, I was forced to throw out my arms in an attempt to maintain my balance. It was in one of these equilibrium episodes that I lost it.

I hit the ground face first because my hands were tangled in the seat cover. It didn’t hurt as badly as I thought it would, so I lay there for a moment as the snow next to my face began to melt. The stinging in my eyes bothered me, but it felt like a good place to rest. Somehow, it didn’t feel as cold there on the ground, and a comfortable, dreamy quality began seeping in with the melting snow. I exhaled a breath to clear the snow away from my shop-rag veil, but it didn’t clear very well. It should have bothered me, but it didn’t. It felt like I was getting enough air, and enough was all I needed. I became aware of a weight that pressed down on every part of my body, like a warm blanket. I struggled a little to clear my hip from a rock that was pressing up from underneath the snow pack and felt a burning sensation in my right ear. Somehow it had gotten uncovered, so I jostled my right arm loose from the nylon and started working my hand up to the exposed flesh.

I listened to the wind and was thinking about just taking a short nap when I heard them. Their voices were high, shifting in and out of the wind along with the sound of chimes or maybe very small bells. It was bells, the sound of thousands of miniature bells, not finely tuned ones, but lesser bells, handmade bells. I listened as they swirled and rounded with the wind and snow. It was as if the bells were not ringing unto themselves but were brushing against something as they continued on their way, turning and stepping with the wind, starting a rhythm that overtook their circular motion. They had started in the distance, but it now seemed as if they were all around me, and they were insistent.

There were shadows too, but these were different from the ones I had seen before. These shadows moved in and out of the snow-covered trees with a different purpose, one that seemed more complicated than that of the ones before. Where the others had moved in a single line along with me, these seemed to enjoy the infinite patterns of the wind, the snow, the trees, and maybe other things that I could not see.

I lay there with my loose hand ready to close the small aperture of the seat-cover hood like a small child afraid to look yet afraid to look away. It was hard to see because my eyelids were trying to freeze shut; my fingers no longer moved individually so I rubbed the butt of my hand across my eyes and blinked to clear my sight. The swirling was right in front of my face now, and it carried the rhythm of many. The patterns swooped in close to the ground and then snapped back quickly as if teasing the ground to follow. I reached my hand out to touch one of the strands, but it slipped through my fingers with the snowflakes. I reached out farther but, every time I got close, the white tendrils whirled away. I placed my arm under me, pushed myself up on one elbow, and looked through my tunnel of snow-coated cloth. They were small, cone-shaped bells that chimed lightly as they moved in tiny rows across well-rounded cloth, which draped from opulent forms. The bells continued to ring even when the wind-fringe swept them away.